Household Cavalry Museum

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Household Cavalry Museum

The Household Cavalry Museum is a living Museum in the heart of Horse Guards, Whitehall, London.

The Household Cavalry Museum is a living museum about real people doing a real job in a real place. Through a large glazed partition you can see troopers working with horses in the original 18th century stables.

The experience comes alive with compelling personal stories, first hand accounts of the troopers’ rigorous and demanding training, interactive displays and stunning rare objects – many on public display for the first time.

Historic setting

The Household Cavalry Museum sits within Horse Guards in Whitehall, central London, one of the city’s most historic buildings. Dating from 1750, it is still the headquarters of the Household Division, in which the Household Cavalry has performed the Queen’s Life Guard in a daily ceremony that has remained broadly unchanged for over 350 years.

The Household Cavalry

The Household Cavalry was formed in 1661 under the direct order of King Charles II and now consists of the two senior regiments of the British Army – The Life Guards and the Blues and Royals.

We have two roles: as a mounted regiment (on horseback), we guard Her Majesty The Queen on ceremonial occasions in London and across the UK and are a key part of the Royal pageantry; as an operational regiment we serve around the world in armoured fighting vehicles. We currently have units deployed on active service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our fighting capacity is matched by our strategic role in international peace keeping and humanitarian operations.

It celebrates the history and accomplishments of The Household Cavalry offering a unique ‘behind the scenes’ look at the work that goes into the ceremonial and armoured
reconnaissance role of HM The Queen’s Mounted Bodyguard.

We are commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo fought on Sunday 18th June 1815 at which The Household Brigade saw distinguished action with the Union Brigade (including the Royals). Together over 2,000 cavalrymen prevented a French infantry corps of some 15,000 with flanking heavy cavalry support from punching a hole through the centre of Wellington’s allied line at a critical stage in the battle.

The Museum houses Waterloo related exhibits of outstanding merit, interest and rarity and the remarkable personal effects used on the day by some of those present on the battlefield. Two are shown below.

The bugle on which the Household Brigade Charge was sounded by 16 year old John Edwards – Lord Somerset’s trumpet orderly of the day.

A hoof (with a lock of hair) which belonged to the Emperor Napoleon’s barb charger Marengo ridden by him at Waterloo.